


A Study In Psychology

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Crying, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Post-Episode: s07e14 The Name of the Doctor, Studying, whouffle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 10:35:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9487448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: This essay is forty percent of her final grade, a fact that Clara is painfully aware of. She's also acutely aware that the Time Lord sat in her bedroom is not conducive to creating a quiet, distraction-free study environment. At least when the stress gets too much, she has a convenient shoulder to cry on.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is loosely based on a discussion I had with [Chrissi](http://archiveofourown.org/users/xXdreameaterXx/pseuds/xXdreameaterXx) about the fact that canonically, while Clara was completing her PGCE (degree in teaching) she would also have been travelling with Eleven, who would not be the world's most helpful study buddy.
> 
> Set post-NOTD but pre-DOTD.

“Clara, I’m bored.”

“That’s nice.” 

“Really bored. So bored I think I might actually regenerate right here in this room while watching you work. It’s not interesting, you know.” 

“Again, that’s nice,” she mumbled, barely listening and instead running her finger down the page she was scanning, tapping the information she needed with a sense of relief. “Gotcha.” 

“Got _what_?” the Doctor whined, sitting up and surveying her with a look that she could picture perfectly from his tone of voice, despite the fact she hadn’t taken her eyes off the screen. She ignored it in favour of adding a footnote to her essay, typing out the date and author and title of her source with meticulous precision. “Not space measles again. You were no fun when you had space measles.” 

“I was _unconscious_ ,” she reminded him, only half-listening to his complaints as she typed another sentence, deleted it, and then reformulated her idea into a more coherent form. She looked up quickly and shot him a look, one eyebrow raised in a deliberate display of irritation. “Remember?” 

“Like I said,” he groused, hands knotting together and knee jiggling up and down as he spoke. “No _fun_.” 

Clara gave him another look and they lapsed back into silence, the Time Lord contemplating his reflection in her dressing table mirror, adjusting his bow tie self-consciously and smoothing down his hair. He reached towards one of her perfume bottles, but was stopped by a well-practiced glare that his companion shot him over the top of her laptop screen. 

“Don’t even _think_ about it.” 

“I’m only _looking_ , Clara. I’m allowed to look at things – especially if I’m not supposed to talk because you _keep complaining at me._ ” 

“Everything you ‘look’ at tends to mysteriously break,” she arched an eyebrow, looking fully up from her essay to affix him with an accusatory stare. “Case point: my last bottle of that _very expensive_ perfume.” 

“Wasn’t my fault the bottle was so tiny that it fell through my fingers.” 

“Of course it wasn’t.” 

“Look, can we _go_ somewhere?” he asked, his tone growing increasingly wheedling, and she sighed, saving her document and resigning herself to the argument that would undoubtedly ensue. “Please? Just a quick little side trip, I’ll have you back before you know it. Time machine, remember? You won’t even lose any time working on this essay.”

“But I will.” 

The Doctor eyed her with some confusion, a silent question on his face, and she groaned inwardly as she realised she would have to explain the perpetual student problem she had been dealing with for the past several weeks.

“If we go somewhere, I’ll get tired. Then I’ll have to sleep. If I sleep on the TARDIS, it’ll throw my circadian rhythms out… more than they already are, at least. I won’t get anything done, and I’ll be tired and cranky and get behind on this essay, and then I’ll submit it late, and fail my bloody PGCE, and…” 

Much to her considerable shock, she burst into hysterical tears. 

“Hey,” the Doctor said at once, flinging himself with aplomb onto the bed beside her and wrapping an arm around her shoulders to draw her against his chest. “That’s not going to happen, Clara. I promise you.” 

“Yes, it is,” she asserted, half-heartedly shoving him away as she wept, feeling embarrassed at her loss of control. “That’s what’s going to happen and it’ll be _your_ fault.” 

“Clara,” he said quietly, and she looked up at him with a twinge of guilt. “I know you’re stressed, but it’s _not_ my fault. It’s not anyone’s, because you’ve absolutely got this. You’re brilliant. You’re smart. You can definitely do this essay and this PG… whatsit.” 

“You and that stupid box…” she mumbled, wiping her eyes with the heel of her hand and trying to stem the irrational, stress-fuelled diatribe that was spilling from her mouth unbidden. “Taking me off to places… making me think I counted for something and could do this…” 

“Clara,” the Doctor said again, taking her hand and squeezing it. “You _do_ count for something. You can absolutely do this, and you’re going to be a brilliant teacher.”

“I’m an idiot,” she refuted, but leant into his side all the same, feeling the scratchy fabric of his jacket against her cheek. “I can’t teach. The kids are going to eat me alive. I can’t even write a sodding essay about pedagogical theory, how can I actually do anything practical?”

“Have any of your fellow students ever saved an entire planet with a leaf?” 

“…no.” 

“Have any of them ever stopped the Great Intelligence… three times?” 

“…again, no.” 

“Have any of them scattered themselves through time to save one idiotic man?” 

“…I very much doubt it, Doctor.”

“Well then,” he beamed down at her, pressing a kiss to her hair before continuing. “You’ve got an advantage. What’s a room full of teenagers compared to that?” 

“Terrifying. That’s what it is. Absolutely terrifying. Especially knowing that they can all go home in the evening and bitch about me all over social media, laughing about how terrible I am and how short I am and-” 

“Clara Oswald,” he said more sternly, moving her laptop aside and pulling her onto his lap despite her protestations. “Nope. No complaining. Essay can wait for five minutes while we have a motivational hug and you get the tears out of your system.” 

“You’re a prat, I need to finish that.” 

“I know you do, but you’re crying, and in my experience, crying does not make for good studying.” 

Clara sighed against his chest, allowing herself to be held and feeling her heartrate return to normal as her tears slowly dried. “You make a good point,” she conceded, hating having to admit it. “A really good point.” 

“I do that a lot, yet people are always surprised. It’s terribly tiring.” 

“Sorry,” she mumbled, resting one hand between his hearts and feeling their reassuring double beat. “And sorry I called you a prat.” 

“S’ok. You’re stressed.” 

“Still not ok,” she jabbed his sternum with her finger in a silent act of chastisement for putting up with her hysteria. “Sorry.” 

“Clara, stop apologising, shift yourself over, and I’ll go and put the kettle on. How does that sound for a plan?” 

“Sounds good.” 

“Right answer,” he grinned, letting her slide off his lap and then getting to his feet, scooping up her laptop as he disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. 

“Hey!” she protested in a tokenistic manner, considering going after him before deciding she didn’t care enough about the essay at that present moment to warrant pursuing her laptop. “I need that!” 

“You need a _break_. You’ve been staring at that thing for hours.”

“You _always_ think the things I do take hours. You have no grasp of time.” 

“I’m a Time Lord!” he argued from the kitchen, and she could picture the indignation on his face. “I always know these things. I’m an expert on the passage of time. Mostly.” 

“You’re an idiot,” she called in a fond tone, getting up and wandering into the kitchen in search of tea and her laptop. She really _should_ finish that essay, despite her lack of enthusiasm at the prospect. “You know that, right?”

“I do,” he beamed at her with evident amusement, flicking his hair out of his eyes as he retrieved mugs with one hand and tinkered with her laptop with the other. “You tell me on a semi-regular basis whenever I do things like this, I’ve started taking it as a token of affection. Anyway, I repeat: usual?”

“Yeah,” she said, eyeing her laptop warily and feeling a lurching sense of apprehension that he might be wiping her hard drive. “What are you doing to it?” 

“Nothing,” he lied, his eyes shifting guiltily from side to side as he spoke, and she took a step towards him, ready to grab for it if necessary. “Nothing at all.” 

“Give.” 

“Nope, not happening.”

“Give, now.” 

“Make me.” 

“Doctor,” she rolled her eyes at his childishness, and snatched the laptop from him, taking in a brand-new desktop background of nebulae that seemed almost 3D. “Wow.” 

“Programmed it for you. If adventuring is out tonight, at least you can see stars. Which is more than you can do out the window with all this fog. Weather phenomena do not make for good stargazing, so this brings stars nicely inside for you for when you need a break from studying. You don’t even have to leave bed, you can just sip tea and stare at this, comfy and safe.” 

“You’re…” she paused, hunting for the right word as he made the tea. “Sweet.” 

“Thanks, I think,” he smiled and passed her the mug, her hands wrapping around it gratefully. “OK?”

“Yeah,” she returned his smile, feeling some of the weight lift from her shoulders as she sipped the hot drink. “Much better.” 

“You know you can do this, right?” 

“I guess.” 

“No, no, no, sorry,” he gave her a mock-serious look, then poked his tongue out to alleviate the severity of the expression. “Not a good enough response. Come on, you’re my Impossible Girl. You can do this.”

“I… can.”

“Louder.” 

“I can.”

“Louder!”

“I can!” she said as loudly as she dared, then giggled. “I don’t want to do this essay though.” 

“Essays are indeed the spawn of the devil, but sadly in your case a necessary evil.” 

“Ugh,” she wrinkled her nose before taking a fortifying swig of tea. “Right. I’m going to go back to it. Stay here, or in the lounge, and try not to break anything. You can watch TV or read books, just don’t break anything. _Please_.” 

“Understood. You can be absolutely assured I will not break or damage any of your possessions.” 

“That sounded insincere.” 

“Your lack of faith in me is wounding, Clara.”

“No, what’s wounding is your impact on my bank account when you keep breaking my household appliances.” 

“Shut up and go and study,” the Doctor poked his tongue out at her again, and Clara rolled her eyes and retreated to her bedroom, inwardly bracing herself for the inevitable moment when he would knock on the door and confess to having broken something. She wondered how long it would be before she was interrupted – the current record stood at twenty-two minutes, and that had not been a good day for her toaster. Or her kettle. 

She’d written two and a half more paragraphs before there was a loud _bang,_ and she sprung out of bed and raced into the lounge to find the Doctor holding aloft one of her course books, the edges of which were discernibly smoking. 

“For the love of all that is holy,” she began, taking a deep breath and fighting the urge to yell. “What the _hell_ have you done to that book? Tell me, now, or so help me I will beat you with it to the point of regeneration. And then beat you some more.”

“I was reading!” he said defensively, tossing it at her and holding up his hands in a gesture of innocence that would have been convincing had he not been holding the sonic. “And it was a little hard to see, so I used the sonic as a reading light, and then… boom.” 

Clara turned the book over in her hands, noticing the singe marks on the cover and silently thanking the gods that at least he hadn’t picked a library book to do this with. On the downside, this book had cost… 

“Sixty-five quid,” she said, with saccharine sweetness and a dangerous expression. “This book cost me sixty-five quid, and my one shining ray of hope was that I could sell it on when I was finished with it.” 

“Urm…” 

“So, Doctor. I don’t know how much money you have tucked away in that box of yours. I don’t know if you’ve got some secret little bank account I don’t know about. But my most sincere suggestion would be getting back in that blue box and going and fetching me a new copy of this book. And I do mean _this_ book. Not the ninetieth edition, updated with how to deal with a mixed-species classroom. I mean this book, in this edition. You can come back with it in the morning, when I’ve finished writing about the zone of proximal development. Because right now, you are in my zone of proximal _annoyance._ Got it?”

“Got it,” the Doctor agreed, scurrying towards the TARDIS with a sheepish expression. “And Clara?” he said over his shoulder, unlocking the door as he did so. “If you speak to your students in that tone… there won’t be any eating alive occurring.” 

“ _Go_.” 

“Yes boss.” 

Clara watched the TARDIS dematerialise, and only then did she allow herself a small, secret smile.

“I’ve got this.”


End file.
